Yagna went after the britzka, Yanek once more bidding farewell to his sisters in tears in front of the house, but gazing only on those moist azure eyes, wonderful as the sky on a May day, which looked into his; on that fair head, crowned with braided locks that went three times round and ended in curves about her ears; and on that face, so white, so dainty, so ... just like a wild rose! She walked along, fascinated by the look in his bright eyes. Her lips were quivering so, that she could not close her mouth. And how her heart was beating! and how humbly she followed him with her eyes, almost swooning for the marvellous sweetness that flooded her! A strange drowsy feeling came over her, and a soporific fragrance seemed to be blunting her senses.... It was only after the britzka had turned off to the poplar road, and their eyes could no longer meet, that she awoke with a shock to the dreary emptiness of all around her, and ceased to follow him. Yanek had waved a last farewell with his cap, and they had disappeared in the shades of the poplars. She rubbed her eyes, waking as it were from a dream. “Lord, Lord!” she ejaculated; “such eyes might draw one down to hell! “An organist’s son!... And looks like a young Squire!... A priest, a priest!... Perchance he will be sent to Lipka!” Again she looked round; but the britzka, though not yet unheard, was no longer in sight. “Such a mere stripling! Almost a boy!... And yet, when he looks at me, I feel it like an embrace, and grow dizzy.” She shivered slightly, licked her scarlet lips, and stretched herself stiff, with voluptuous zest. Suddenly she shuddered. Her head and feet were bare: she noted it only now. And she was almost undressed—only in her smock, with a tattered shawl on her shoulders! She blushed for shame, and started for home by the most unfrequented paths. “Know ye that the lads are coming?” girls and women and children called out to her from within their enclosures. They were all breathless with the gladness of the tidings. “Coming or not, what is the difference?—The fools!” she murmured, annoyed at the mad joy they all felt at their husbands’ return. She looked in at her mother’s. Only Andrew was at home. That day he had left his bed for the first time, and his broken leg was still in bandages. He was sitting on the door-step, weaving a basket, and whistling to the magpies that hopped about. “Yagna, do you know? Our folk are coming home!” “All day long naught else have I heard!” “And Nastka is simply crazy over Simon’s return!” “Why?” Her eyes flashed sternly; they had her mother’s steely glance. “Oh, for no reason!... My leg is hurting me again,” he faltered, frightened to have betrayed a secret. “Be quiet, plaguy ones!” he vociferated, throwing a stick at a number of cackling hens. Then he pretended to rub his leg, and looked with anxiety into her strangely louring face. “Where is Mother?”